My daughter has a friend who has described himself as one who doesn't have spiritual experiences and seems to be less than entirely comfortable with this assessment of himself.

I wonder if he may be judging himself by someone else's interpretation of what a spiritual experience is. I wonder if our understanding of what is spiritual is often more narrow than is actually the case.

Maybe we can begin where we are, with what we are experiencing, and remember. I think that might be a good place to begin a conversation that may or may not seem spiritual, but may increase our sense of well-being.

Yesterday, a friend told me a true story: recently, at a small Episcopal church in Los Angeles one of the church members was hosting a film crew from Hollywood. As the people on the crew worked, they began to talk about feeling uncomfortable in the church. Being in the building, reminded them of bad experiences that they had had in other churches, in previous decades. As I listened, I thought, "The conversation the film crew had was good and beautiful." Causing children pain is not good and therefor is not of God. Whoever hurt these people years ago, in small or large ways, was acting out of their own pain and incompleteness.

I believe telling each other the truth, is one of the best ways to move out from under our burdens. Maybe we can relax as we attempt to thoughtfully share our lives together. Could this experiment expand our assumptions about one another and about what is spiritual?